North-East corner of India. As the Indian Government
regards this part of India as politically sensitive, access
to foreigners is severely restricted. To point up this
situation, the researcher, who had Indian citizenship at
the time of her field research was stopped on four separate
occasions and asked to prove her nationality.
In spite of these difficulties, the researcher considered
it imperative to visit Shillong to identify this "lost"
group of Anglo-Indians who had never been the subject of
research before. The interviews informed the results of
the size survey of Anglo-Indians and impacted on the
formulation of the educational theory-practice model (c.f.
discussion below Ch. 9 p.331) for Anglo-Indian schools.
4.2. The Meghalayan Anglo-Indians: The Descendants of
British colonialists in Meghalaya
The mineral rich and tea-growing areas of the North-East
Frontier attracted the Europeans who worked for the East
India Company in the late eighteenth century. (39) The
European colonialists married the Khasi women who belonged
to a group of Austro-Asiatic people who speak Khasi, which
is one of the Mon-Khmer family of languages, and is the
only surviving one in India. By the laws of succession the
daughters inherit the whole of their parents' territory,
and the sons are sent to live with their wives. (40)
Ethnologically, the hill tribes of the North-East Frontier
are primarily of the Tibeto-Mongoloid stock with a
sprinkling of Austric and Dravidian blood. The Khasis and
Jaintias belong to the same tribal community and live in
the Khasi and Jaintia hills. The society of the Khasi
Scheduled Tribe continues to be completely matriarchal.
(41)
227